In their latest round of funding, OpenDoor scored $325 million in funding. Late last year, SoftBank invested $450 million into Compass. VC money is alive and well, and it’s found a home in real estate tech, pouring into the industry. And as we all saw at Inman Connect last week, the competition is as hot as five-star Thai food. It literally hurts to digest.

In a sea of change…

As all of us in the real estate world are saying, the industry is evolving quicker than most can keep up. It’s a treadmill that only seems to be getting faster and faster with no pause button in sight. What was super cool last quarter is the status quo today. There’s no room for lags and fear. What do these higher monetary stakes and complex competition mean for traditional brokerages? The value prop of your brokerage and its brand is key.

Question: Why should your agents stay at your brokerage?

Staying relevant and valuable to agents will continue to gain in difficulty. Without the money to offer six figure signing bonuses, your brokerage value proposition has to be hard as rock. If I were sitting across from you and asked, “Why do you think your agents should stay at your brokerage versus going somewhere else?” What would your answer be? Do you have a sophisticated tech stack? Do you train your agents on it or just hand it off and hope for the best? Do you continuously stay in contact with your agents or do you forget about them until they tell you they’re going to a different brokerage?

The magic of an open-door policy

There’s a top brokerage in Virginia – that will go unnamed – that is taking a very logical approach: They have an open-door policy. They’ll answer any and all questions – even about Compass. If an agent has concerns, they feel empowered enough to walk into the Managing Broker’s office and ask them, knowing they’ll get an honest answer. Because of that, their retention numbers are insane. They’ve invested in tech, and they’re investing time into their most precious asset: their people, their real estate agents.

Action items:

Don’t

Don’t lose your current agents because you’re only focused on recruiting new ones.

Don’t let any agent feel like they’re being left in the dark (including on the topic of Compass).

Do

Build on your existing relationships.

Let your agents know you care and want them there.

Implement an open-door policy if you haven’t already. It’ll be the best decision you’ve made all year.

You can even try hanging a sign on the wall by your office, letting your agents know that they’re always welcome to come in.

Have a proper recruiting system in place. This will focus your time on top talent inside and outside of your brokerage, making sure you’re getting the full picture and avoiding agents slipping through the cracks.

Brokerages today are worried about losing top producers, concerning themselves over the revenue and sales volume that those top producers take with them if they leave. It makes perfect sense. Losing one agent isn’t going to have a dramatic shift on market share, but it will impact a brokerage’s sales volume. This whole storm is why we created our Moxi Talent recruiting system in the first place. Too often, Managing Brokers don’t pay attention to agents until they threaten to walk. Moxi Talent helps you build relationships with the right people at the right time.